i switched to vaping with nicotine. zero problem. did not miss cigs for a second. Then I slowly reduced the nicotine over six months until zero. i’m now smokefree since 2 years after lighting up 30 cigs a day for over 20 years.
I did the same thing after smoking almost as long, well done and congratulations!
Nicely done! That’s how vapes should be used; as a means of harm reduction/tapering off, not as a ‘healthy’ replacement as some people view them to be.
They’re still healthier than cigarettes (just because you’re not breathing combusted organic matter) so if every smoker switched to vapes then we’d be in a better place. The only issue I have is the huge uptake of vaping among young people who wouldn’t otherwise have smoked.
I did that same thing and went 5 years, somehow wound up back on vapes, and I can admit there wasn’t a day that went by for those 5 years I didn’t WANT a cigarette. Addiction is fucking powerful, and the only truly good option humans have is to never start in the first place. I don’t blame any adult smoker of any substance, but I try hard to tell young people not to start.
Gum and patches really do work if you give it an honest try. I’m speaking from experience.
In my experience, they don’t and e-cigs do. It’s different from person to person.
I haven’t smoked OR vaped for over 3 years after 18 years of smoking where I tried every other smoking cessation method including prescription medications.
Took me about three months of going from smoking to vaping high nicotine to gradually reducing to no nicotine and then not vaping at all.
Yeah the opposite was true for me. Vaping definitely was less effective because it gives you that instant hit which is a big component of the addictiveness of nicotine.
Glad it worked for you though. It’s a terrible habit.
It is hard, but it’s absolutely worth it and can be made easier if you slowly transition rather than going cold turkey. No way I could have stopped without nicotine gum. Once I finally forced myself to throw my vape in the garbage and just kept using nicotine gum it was really hard to justify going back to vaping/smoking. Smoking (~5 years) -> Vaping (~5 years) -> Nicotine gum (~3 months) -> Regular gum (still using)
When I would take clients to a smoking cessation therapist, one fact that she would cite was the fact that quitting cigarettes is more difficult than quitting heroin.
I would also be told anecdotally by many of my clients that it was harder to quit than other hard drugs like meth and one person even said crack.
It can certainly be broken, but addiction is a disease and your comment could come off as condescendingly minimizing an incredibly difficult task.
